The present embodiments relate to imaging flow in a patient. Across medical imaging modalities, there are a number of technologies that perform flow imaging concurrently with tissue imaging. Phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging (PC-MRI) provides both flow as well as anatomy data. Doppler ultrasound may be interleaved with B-mode ultrasound to provide both flow and anatomy imaging. Some modalities, like computed tomography (CT) do not produce flow information. While computations fluid dynamic (CFD) may be used to estimate flow from CT data, CFD is time consuming.
Information contained in the flow images or indices of clinical significance derived from the flow images may be used for diagnosis, prevention, treatment and/or intervention planning. Such information can be readily observable from the flow images or could be more deeply embedded as features detectable by more sophisticated algorithms. However, gathering of the flow data may be slow as compared to tissue imaging and may fail for certain patients (e.g. PC-MRI failure where maintaining a breath hold is unfeasible).